Parental Choice Rebuffed By SC Senate Committee
The “Republican-controlled” S.C. Senate Education Committee today sent a comprehensive parental choice proposal back to subcommittee, effectively ending its chances of becoming law this year.
The decision – which was made without a vote – does not preclude the possibility of choice legislation being attached as an amendment to another bill later in the session, although time is obviously running short.
And while we have no doubt there will be plenty of spin in the wake this development, the bottom line is that once again State Sen. John Courson – the Senate Education Chairman and a so-called “Republican” from Richland County – just didn’t want a parental choice bill coming out of his committee.
Apparently, Courson doesn’t believe that parents should be permitted to use less than a third of the tax money being spent on their kids to find educational settings that would better suit their needs.
Also, he evidently feels that 73,000 poor, mostly black students should stay right where they are – stuck in failing public schools.
That’s too bad.
That’s also not going to sit well with people like Anna Rumsey, who had this to say in an opinion-editorial published in this morning’s La Socialista:
We spend millions of dollars yearly in support of a system that at best is socially promoting students in the poorer counties. Where do these students end up? On the welfare rolls, unable to read, relegated to menial jobs that do not allow them to support their families. And so the cycle repeats itself, generation after generation.
Exactly.
Sen. Courson – capably aided by “Republican” Senators Larry Martin and Wes Hayes – basically said today that this cycle was working just fine.
Comments
By Shocked on May 13th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Looks like Courson, like Hayes before him, is still taking marching orders from the NEA/SCEA/SCASA/SCSBA perma-failure cabal. No doubt their legions of lobbysts/publicists/bloggers are keeping the heat up, and ensuring that “The System” remains protected from criticism and competition.
Good news for Jim Rex. Too bad for the kids.
By Why School Choice?! on May 13th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
“Liberals like choice because it gives underprivileged students a chance for a better education. Conservatives like it because it is cheap, fosters competition among schools, and transfers power from administrators to parents. Says Chester Finn Jr., an Assistant Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan: ‘Choice has everything going for it, and nothing against it.’”
“The Fight over School Choice”
Time Magazine
Monday, Mar. 13, 1989
By GnuBerry on May 13th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
You seem obsessed with vouchers.
By JBV on May 13th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Thank goodness there are still some real Republicans left.
By BIN News Editorial Staff on May 13th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
The giant sucking sound was the voucher scam going down the toilet, again. Which is what it deserves.
As we’ve said, no Legislator with integrity will vote for a voucher scam. Vouchers really are dead in S.C. Tell Howie’s voucher clowns.
We will watch with interest. If sic(k) willie continues to attack Senators Courson, Hayes and Martin he better wear asbestos underwear.
Courson is a former Marine (once one, always one). Hayes is a West Point grad. Martin served on a Criminal Domestic Violence committee. Remember, sic(k) willie confessed to CDV. They have him on land, sea and courts.
They might just blister his @rse if he is not careful. :)
Everyone remember. Vouchers are dead in S.C. Jake said so.
See you next year, Howie.
BIN News Editorial Staff
Flair and Balanced
By Tiger Mom on May 13th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Wow BIN! You sound like a real empty suit. What does past military service have to do with present day poor decision making about state level K-12 education funding policy? A: Nothing
This is the type of brilliant leaps of logic that took us from 911 into Iraq.
Oh, and by the way – today (and every school day this year) another 158 kids dropped out of South Carolina public high schools. Like it or not the Choice folks have proposed a solution. You, on the other hand, have just kept posting blog comments.
By Ermo on May 13th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
GnuBerry seems fixated on keeping kids in failing schools.
By baker on May 13th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
It is a good thing this didn’t go anywhere this year. If the pro-voucher/tax-credit folks want their proposals to be taken seriously, seems to me that they’ve just got to at least iron out some of the most blatant flaws.
For instance, this non-sense about the “Education Opportunity Act” saving public schools money: The plan was for ALL families of private schoolers to get money when everything was fully implemented. This would likely a million $ or more in just about every county in the state. Anyone with half a clue could see the financial impact — and the unlikeliness that this would “save money for the state and for public school districts” or whatever. And I think this undercut the whole proposal.
It’s funny: Public school critics claim that “educrats” are greedy money-grubbers who don’t care about the kids they’re supposed to teach. They also claim that private school choice would be a financial winner for public schools while taking struggling students off the hands of public school districts. If all that is true, then it logically follows that public school “educrats” would be in full support of private school choice plans like the “Education Opportunity Act.” The fact that public school officials are skeptical, I think, suggests that they are well aware that the claims and projections of SCRG and such are extremely faulty.
By baker on May 13th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I meant to say:
This would likely COST a million $ or more in just about every county in the state.
By John on May 13th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
BIN,
Listen I know success will never convince you. The fact that vouchers have worked everywhere they have been tried means nothing in SC. In SC we will keep doing it the way we’ve always done it because “nobody is gonna tell us what to do.” Good for us. We will continue to suck hind teat and we will leave more and more kids behind so that these corrupt politicians can keep their “constituents” (owners) happy. What if one more or 50,000 more kids fail at life. So long as those bastards keep their power.
The time is coming, sooner or later.
By Josh on May 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Vouchers in Milwaukee only worked to go around the powerful teachers union. Has anyone noticed we don’t have unionized teachers and just about no unions at all, thank god.